egafd.com

Hi what format is the best at the moment. eg: DVD / Mini DV etc.

Also what good camcorders are around for production.? There are quite alot of good Cannon Mini DV,s going for reasonable prices on Ebay. With stability control.

I dont want to spend XL1 money but want something that will be good quality for showing clips online.

Thanks

Funnily enough, I have been looking at buying one and sought advice.
I was told to avoid DVD as they are crap (and only hold 30 mins worth), whilst tape is better quality but fiddly, and takes a long time to transfer to PC etc.

I was advised (and have bought but not yet delivered) a hard disk camera. In my case a Sony DCR-SR90E. I was told that Sony offer the best quality due to the Carl Zeiss lens that they use. I can't tell you how good it is yet, but will be able to next week.

I hope this helps

All DVD is MPEG2 which is a compressed format and a trade off between running time and quality for a given file size.

Hence better to stick with miniDV.

I've no experience of Hard Drive models but suspect they will record in a compressed format rather than raw AVI.

I borrowed one of the domestic Panasonic 3CCD models, GS250 from memory but could be wrong, a while ago.
The recorded quality was good in good lighting but it struggled with focus in low lighting.
My mid range JVC DX77 is better in low light and despite the image sensor being 800k pixels rather than 2.3M pixels overall no obvious loss in definition watching on my 23" CRT TV or transferred on DVD at resolutions of 60 - 90 minutes for 4.7GB.

A lot depends what you want to do with the recorded material. i.e. copy to DVD and maybe tidy up by cuting bits out and titling on a compter or do lots of fancy editing.

A Mini DV will give you the picture quality that will reproduce well as Mpeg2.
At the moment I am going to buy an HDD camcorder because I want to view my films in HDTV.The new camcorders cost about a thousand and give professional quality.

However content is the main problem. Creativity is not made but born. The resolution of a picture is secondary to the content.

Good Luck,
Mike Freeman.

I just want something that can give quality recording. Good enough to put online as 30mins clips etc.

Thanks